Language Without Words
by Maaya
Summary: To Winry, it felt as if they were speaking completely different languages. EdxWinry


Disclaimer: I don't own the characters. But you already know that, don't you?

In a way, this is based on a concept from the book 'The Alchemist' by Paulo Coelho. If you've read the book, you probably know what I mean by just looking at the title of this drabble.

Edward/Winry, angst, sap. Unbeta-ed, I'm afraid.

**Language Without Words**  
by Maaya

It was frustrating to talk with Ed sometimes, Winry thought. Well, in fact, it was frustrating to talk with him most of the time, because he rarely told her anything. He might, with a self-assured smirk, speak of what he was going to do when he and Al were restored, or maybe mock her interest for machines when she mocked his affection for alchemy. Sometimes they'd talk pointlessly about nothing at all over a card game (Which Edward always lost, because card games are based mostly on luck, something he didn't have. Now, if they'd played 'Trivial Pursuit', he might have won.) and once in a while they discussed what Edward wanted his automail arm to be able to do, and what Winry knew it would be able to do if she was given time to work on it.

But when did he ever tell her anything? Why was it she always had to try and read his actions rather than words? Sometimes, it was as hard as reading a book without letters.

To Winry, it felt as if they were speaking completely different languages.

Winry had known Edward for a very long time. She knew him. In a way, she supposed she understood him too, as she had grown up with him and his brother, who were very alike. More than anyone would guess at the first sight, but that was not the point.

Neither liked to talk about how they felt and she was ashamed of how much she wished they would, because even though she could sometimes read between the unsaid lines, they thought too much of her abilities. In a way, she failed them that way. They expected her to know, but in her heart she didn't.

Being able to see the signs, it was frustrating not to be able to decipher them. Once upon a time, she might have been able to, when they were still small and played together each and every day. Back then, they had still been naturally three, not like now when Alphonse and Edward had gone off without her. To experience new things without her.

Winry hadn't been angry, they had done what they had needed to, she knew that, but she had felt abandoned.

They came back sometimes, often without warning, and they worried her by showing up more or less torn to pieces. Not once had they explained what was going on, and how they felt about it. They changed, and that was natural, expected, even. But it was hard not to wish she could change alongside them – she was one of them, had always been.

Winry was afraid she might wake up one day and not be. Right now, she feared the day would come soon.

_It's dangerous, isn't it? Why can't you tell me? Am I supposed to understand what you don't say? I can't_

"I'm not a seer," Winry had told the older brother one night when she and Edward had stayed up late for no reason at all. They did that more and more often, stay up just the two of them; spending time in comfortable silence, Winry tinkering with something mechanic and Edward reading.

Maybe it had only been Edward who started, because Winry had always stayed up late. Maybe Ed had too. But now he had begun to sit up with her. In the same room as her. Breathing the same air as her. Being part of the same silence with her. That was also part of the unsaid words she didn't quite comprehend.

Edward looked up from the book at her words, one eyebrow raised. The other was down in a frown, as if he was partly annoyed at being disturbed, partly curious about her seemingly random statement.

She continued. "How am I supposed to know when you don't say anything?"

Another silent moment fell upon them, heavy but somehow smooth, like the darkness outside. She knew she wanted to know Edward and she wanted to understand him. One day Winry certainly would, but she needed a start.

But however painful it might be when he didn't talk, it was even more so to see him struggle with words he couldn't get out. He gave up after a few, almost awkward, moments and his other eyebrow joined the first in his typical, annoyed Edward-fashion frown. He looked like he was...hesitating? The frustrated redness that coloured his cheeks surprised her a little.

And when he had aggressively moved his head and body forward over the table to land a hard, sloppy, hot, obviously first, kiss on Winry's lips, she blushed too. Although, not as much as Edward when he just as quickly moved back and made moves to escape the room. A vague, grumpily embarrassed grunt that could be an attempted 'sorry' as well as a laugh or a cough, startled the silence before he stepped out and closed the door behind him.

When the shock (and blush) had worn off, Winry realized she was frowning through a small smile.

Why did Edward always have to tell things without saying them?

**End**


End file.
